Companies find major growth potential in cloud computing solutions

Mobile Chart Companies find major growth potential in cloud computing solutions Laurie Beaver | October 27, 2015   Cloud computing was the real winner at the end of one of the busiest earnings days of Q3 2015 last week. Amazon, Alphabet (as Google), and Microsoft all highlighted their cloud-computing segments as major growth drivers for the future of their companies. Cloud-computing leaders Microsoft and Amazon, with 29% and 12% global market share in Q2 2015, respectively, have experienced massive growth over the past 18 months. Amazon's Web Service (AWS), its cloud-computing arm, grew 78% YoY in Q3 2015, to reach $2.08 billion in revenue. Revenue for Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing platform, grew 135% YoY, with compute usage doubling.  While Amazon is by far the market leader in providing cloud services, Microsoft's growth indicates that businesses are increasingly interested in its services. Microsoft offers three main benefits that will help it stay a close competitor to Amazon, according to the Motley Fool:  Microsoft offers a dominant and integrated operating system: 89% of PCs globally already operate some version of Microsoft's Windows, reports Net Market Share. Many of these users will upgrade to Windows 10, which is tightly integrated into Azure's Backup service. Microsoft is betting correctly that many of these customers will stay with this default service. Gartner data suggests that 64% of enterprises chose Azure because of a pre-existing relationship with Windows. Microsoft prioritizes cloud-service investments: Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella has indicated that the company will continue to build out its cloud-services infrastructure. Nadella has consistently prioritized Microsoft's cloud business over short-term revenue gains. Staying on par with competitors' services: Importantly, Microsoft has done a good job of beating Amazon to market when offering new services. For example, Azure was the first to build out platforms for machine learning and IoT devices. The growth seen by these two companies and others in cloud-computing storage will likely continue into the foreseeable future, according to survey data from RightScale. At the time of the survey, 93% of enterprise respondents were using cloud services. RightScale's annual survey of 930 respondents (306 enterprise respondents; 624 SMB respondents) assesses user adoption of cloud infrastructure. Home  |  Analysts  |  Alerts  |  Your Account Copyright © 2015 Business Insider, Inc. All rights reserved. The email address for your subscription is: Business Insider RSS Feed   |   Terms of Service   |   Privacy Policy Business Insider. 150 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10011

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